Disclosure Details

Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS) - 251/12

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')(FOIA)

Thank you for your email dated 6 March 2012 in which you made a request for access to certain information which may be held by Northumbria Police.

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

I would like to know whether your police authority has established a Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS)?

If not, do you plan to establish such a scheme in the near future?

If your force has established a CSAS, I would like to know -

How many 'Accredited Persons' have been granted powers under your Community Safety Accreditation Scheme (CSAS)?

How many organisations are in your force’s CSAS? Please give details of these organisations (their name; and whether they are a public or private company).

Please provide details of the powers the Accredited Persons have been granted.

Please provide details on how these Accredited Persons (AP) have used their powers. I would like statistics of any fixed penalty notices (FPN) or penalty notices for disorder (PND) issued by APs. If possible, I would also like information about other recorded incidents of the use of powers, such as alcohol confiscation.

In response:

We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.

Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Operations Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is not held by Northumbria Police.

We do not currently have a CSAS operating in Northumbria Police.

We will be exploring options around this as part of the development of our volunteering agenda.

It may interest you to note that a previous CSAS ended during 2011, and responses to earlier FOI requests on this subject are freely available from the Northumbria Police website via the Disclosure log, to aid and assist you I have provided links below to the relevant pages:-

The information we have supplied to you is likely to contain intellectual property rights of Northumbria Police. Your use of the information must be strictly in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) or such other applicable legislation. In particular, you must not re-use this information for any commercial purpose.

If you are still unhappy after we have investigated your complaint and reported to you the outcome, you may complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office and request that they investigate to ascertain whether we have dealt with your request in accordance with the Act.